Pregnancy can leave you ‘defeeted’

She was having a hard time.

“Here, let me help you,” I said and reached in front of her filled buggy and held open the door. I looked down into the eyes of a toddler gripping the young woman’s hand. She struggled to push her cart with one hand and hold onto him with the other. She was pregnant. Very pregnant.

“Why don’t you let me get that for you? I don’t have anything but this one, little bag,” I offered. “Really, I’d love to help,” I prodded and she smiled and gave in. I could tell she was tired. It was in her eyes.

I took her buggy and pushed as she walked beside me, still holding on to the little boy. As we crossed the parking lot I asked her when she was due.

“Last week,” she sighed and let out a tired little laugh. The little boy leaned forward and patted his mother’s stomach. “That’s not fat, that’s a baby!” he announced and both the young woman and I stopped in our tracks and laughed. “That’s right, sweetie,” she told him, then turned to me and said. “I can’t even see my feet.”

“I remember that feeling,” I told her and I meant it. It’s been a while, nearly 18 years, but I can still remember.

I recall vividly the day my husband came home from work and I was beached on the sofa crying. I was nine months pregnant with our first child. Nine months and almost two weeks, to be exact.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he gazed down upon his whale of a wife, wondering, I am sure, why I was once again wearing that danged black dress with the huge tropical flowers all over it. I looked like Hawaii had thrown up on me. Fact is, the last three weeks I was pregnant I had exactly three articles of clothing that fit